Chapter 11
Zane listened to Thorne and Tyr arguing about what they should do next. Whether it had been stupid to break into Blaze’s house.
Whether it would be even stupider not to try it again.
“We could just go to her door,” Tyr said. “You know. Ring the doorbell? Ask her for the Seal?”
“We tried that, numb-nuts. Remember the gate? That she wouldn’t open for us?”
“We could fly over that.”
“And explain it how?”
Tyr went silent. Then, “We could kidnap her.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. You want to kidnap a dark witch? And keep her where? For how long? What do we do with her afterwards, when she’s all pissed off and wanting to curse us?”
“Maybe she’ll fall in love with you and give you the Seal.”
That got Zane’s attention. If anyone was kidnapping Blaze and making her fall in love with him, it was going to be Zane.
Shit. Even he realized how insane that sounded.
To keep from killing his brothers, he started picking up the papers Tyr had knocked to the floor. An embossed invitation with gilt borders fell out of a pile of mail, addressed to Thorne at his art gallery. The gallery was a legitimate business, and well-respected, even though Thorne left the day-to-day management of it to someone else. For Thorne, it was just a useful front for tracking down, buying and selling magical artifacts.
Zane picked up the invitation and froze, gazing at the gold lettering. The answer to their problems, just lying in a pile of trash.
Maybe there was something to this destiny thing.
“What about this?” he asked, holding out the invitation.
Thorne glanced at it. “What about it?”
“You’re invited to Jean-Claude D’Amboise’s annual suck-up-and-kiss-ass party on Saturday.”
“So what?” Thorne said. “He tries to get me to go every year, and every year I tell him to fuck off. It’s full of dark wizards and dealers in shadow artifacts. You know Jean-Claude has his fingerprints on every purveyor of magic in Portland. If people who aren’t dragons and couldn’t annihilate him with a few well-placed belches want to stay in business, they all have to…”
Tyr raised his head, eyes sparkling. “They have to go to the ball. And kiss ass.” He stared at Zane. “You think Blaze McKenna will be there.”
“She has to be,” Zane said. “I say we conjure up a few tuxes and go make D’Amboise kiss our asses. And introduce us to Blaze McKenna.”
Thorne tapped his fingers on the desk, thinking. Finally he nodded. “Okay then,” he said. “Looks like we’re going to a party.”
Zane left the Batcave—not by the elevator, but through the ancient wooden doors carved with the Guardians’ coat of arms. Beyond them was a huge stone atrium, big enough for three full Draken to stand side by side. Stone tunnels led off in several directions, carved through the ridge by dragonfire. He stood for a moment, indecisive.
He should go upstairs and grab something to eat. He knew he wouldn’t sleep, but there were old movies on Netflix, or the gym to work out his excess energy. Or he could fly up into the night, higher and higher, where the air grew thin and the stars grew impossibly bright, until his wings wouldn’t hold him and he hurtled down back to earth.
But he could feel one of his dark moods stealing over him, when guilt and sorrow and loneliness ate away at him until he wanted to find the darkest cave he could, crawl into the back and sink into dreams of a woman with red-gold hair, a treasure worth more than caves of gold.
But he was afraid that comfort was gone forever, now that his dream had been shattered by reality. No Draken mate, but a dark sorceress. And he wanted her still.
The idol, back in his pocket, seemed to whisper to him again, pulling him to the right, toward the portal that led magically between the mountains, to Vyrkos’ tomb.
Wanting to make him wallow in tonight’s failure, no doubt. Screw that. He didn’t need the whisperings of a dark artifact for that. He could manage it just fine on his own.
He turned on his heel and headed left instead.
Their rooms upstairs had TVs and king-size beds and walk-in closets and all the amenities a fortune in dragon gold could buy. But every Wild Dragon needed a lair, a place where his beast could feel safe. Every dragon needed wind under his wings, but he also needed a mountain to protect him.
Zane’s lair was at the end of a long, empty corridor, large enough to drive a couple of semi-trucks side by side through it. The sound of his footsteps echoed off the walls, the stone floor worn down by centuries of booted feet and dragon claws.
These caves were far older than the city of Portland, older than the first tiny settlement where the two rivers met. Dragons had been here for thousands of years, feared and worshiped by the Native peoples.
The Guardians and their clans had dug these caves out of solid rock, and here they’d brought their treasures from many worlds, shielding their lairs from human detection with dragon magic. Most of the lairs were empty now, had been empty for centuries. The treasure their owners had amassed was mostly gone, taken back to the Dragonlands by their descendants.
Only the Guardians had stayed. They’d watched the settlers come, watched the city grow. And died in the Battle of Mount St. Helens, up near Seattle, when the Draken Lord Zavrek broke free from his tomb.
One by one, Zane passed the great carved doors leading to the dead dragons’ lairs. He knew all their names—Volandre, Covenrae, Krakyr, Ayrik.
Some of those lairs still held remnants of treasure, what hadn’t been sold in the last hundred years to build the dragons’ business empire in the human world. Gold and gems were precious to dragons, but it was getting harder and harder to get cold hard cash for them.
Walk into a bank with a sack of ancient gold, and you’d have Homeland Security on your ass in no time.
At the end of the hall was Zane’s lair. It was the biggest one on this corridor—the others’ lairs were in different corridors. Dragons liked their privacy.
Zane paused at the doorway, like he always did. Thirty years, and he still didn’t really feel like it belonged to him. He was an intruder.
He opened the huge door, carved with images of suns and moons and stars, all with individual faces as if the heavens were not distant and terrifying, but a group of friends. The hinges squeaked, as always, and he made a mental note to oil them.
Someday.
The torches on the walls whooshed to life as he entered, their flames sending shadows and glimmers of light dancing through the cavern.
Before him was a stone fireplace, cold and empty, with two dusty armchairs flanking it. To his left was a desk made of gnarled branches and flat sections of tree trunks, all polished to a warm glow.
Now it reminded him of Blaze’s work table. Zane ran his fingers over the top of it, thinking of her, wondering what she’d look like in the torchlight.
Lying on a bed of gold.
The rest of the vast cavern—big enough for a dragon to sleep in—was filled with treasure. Piles of gold, silver and copper coins. Rings and bracelets and necklaces; goblets and plates; intricate statues and plain ingots. Precious stones, set in jewelry or just lying around loose.
Most of the hoard wasn’t Zane’s—not really. It had belonged to the Guardian named Ayrik, of the Clan of Al-Kasbah. Sometimes, when his dragon was dozing in the cavern, he thought he could hear Ayrik’s hoard singing a song to its rightful master, who’d died a death worthy of a Draken Guardian.
Saving the people of Seattle and Portland, like a Guardian was supposed to do.
Zane went to a much smaller pile of gold and gems in a corner. This was his own treasure, the small hoard he’d brought with him when Thorne recruited him for this job.
This crazy, doomed, hopeless job of finding the Three Seals and preventing Vyrkos from rising and destroying everything between here and the western sea.
He climbed onto his small pile of treasure, already arranged to fit the contours of his human body. He settled into it, his body relaxing with a sigh. The hoard welcomed him, humming a faint song of pleasure.
Dragons loved treasure, and treasure loved dragons. He leaned his head back onto a pillow of gold coins.
Maybe when Zane died trying to defeat Vyrkos, his hoard would sing in his memory. It would be nice to be remembered for doing something brave.
He wanted to believe that that wouldn’t happen. He wanted to believe he and Thorne and Tyr would somehow find the Seals in the next few weeks, even though Thorne had been hunting for nearly forty years with no luck.
He wanted to believe they’d be strong enough to take down Vyrkos, if they didn’t find the Seals.
And most of all, he wanted to believe that Tyr’s fairy tale—the Prophecy of the Seals and the Three Mates of Destiny—was true.
The Rogue, the Rebel and the Storm.
The vision of Blaze McKenna stole into his mind. Years of dream-memories followed. Her eyes. Her smile. Her scent. The feel of her skin. The taste of her, slick and salty and filled with love.
The way he felt when he woke after each dream, love and warmth wrapped around him like a blanket.
The empty ache in his chest when he found himself still alone.
The tiny star of hope in that empty void, right now, that said he had to see her again. Taste her lips, touch that skin, kiss the tiny mole he knew was on her right shoulder.
He had to know if she was really his destined mate—the one who would have the Seal, the one who would save them all.
He drifted off into a dream, soothed by the hum of the gold surrounding him. And then, gradually, the song changed.
A discordant note crept into it. And the whispering began. It told him of the glory of the dragons, how they would once more rule.
When they were free.